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These days, I'm a senior online editor at Forbes. I was previously an editor at Above the Law, a legal blog, relying on the legal knowledge gained from two years working for corporate law firm Covington & Burling -- a Cliff's Notes version of law school.
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On Judge William Adams Beating His Daughter and Internet Revenge

Hillary Adams posted a video she made in 2004 of her father beating her with a belt

They say revenge is best served cold. In the case of Hillary Adams, a Texas woman who recently posted a very disturbing video of her father violently beating her, the revenge nearly has freezer burn.

The video of the abuse was made in 2004. Adams posted it last week on YouTube explaining that her father “took a belt to his own teenage daughter as punishment for using the internet to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time.” Her father is not just your average abusive Texan. William Adams is a public figure, an Aransas County Court-at-Law judge. The video went viral after she posted it to Reddit, a site where users would be especially sympathetic to a judge’s corporal punishment for illegal downloading. Redditors launched a vigilante campaign, posting numbers for local law enforcement and media outlets (as well as pranking the judge by ordering pizzas to his home). From there, the horrific video gained national attention within a day, from blogs as well as local media in Texas. The sheriff’s office is now launching an investigation.

Did I mention that the video is seven years old? Why post it now?

Well, Judge William Adams holds an elected office, and his daughter would prefer he not hold it. “Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can’t even exercise fit judgement as a parent himself,” she writes in the description of her video. “Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again.”

A viral video of your beating your daughter with a belt has to be even worse for an office-holder than naked photos of what’s below that belt. Someone has already created a “Don’t Re-Elect Judge William Adams” Facebook page, which has attracted thousands of fans. Sorry, Facebookers. Aransas County does have an election coming up next week, but Adams’s term is not up this time around. He’s not up for re-election until three years from now, the county clerk’s office tells me. Of course, the public attention to this could well lead to his stepping down, though he tells a local news affiliate that the incident “happened years ago,” that he “apologized,” and that “it’s not as bad as it looks on tape.” Update (Nov 3): The judge is stepping down from the bench and taking paid leave while the case is investigated, reports KRIS.

It does look pretty bad, especially to someone who grew up in a household that frowned even on spanking. (The video makes me wonder if other children who suffer violence at home could use the tool of public shame to help them, or if this one caught on solely because it involved a public figure.)

The power of video here is fairly incredible. Had Hillary Adams, now in her 20s, suddenly stepped forward and said her father beat her as a child, it likely wouldn’t get much traction. But the video places the incident in the here and now, almost making the seven years that have elapsed insignificant. Adams surely couldn’t have imagined that a punishment of his daughter in the privacy of his home could come back to haunt him professionally years later.

Update: Adams is now tweeting that she feels “some regret” for publishing the video and ruining her father.

The delay in publishing the video reminded me of a story I wrote about a year ago that involved a Harvard Law student who discussed in a private e-mail the possibility that intelligence is linked to genetics, and thus race. Her then-friend saved that email (as most of us do), and a year later, when their friendship soured, sent the email out to a few people, including a member of Harvard’s Black Student Association. As with Hillary Adams, the Harvard frenemy knew the right audience to take her smoking gun to in order to ensure it get widespread attention. The e-mail very quickly went viral, and the law student’s name will probably be linked to “racist” in Google search results for the rest of her life.

Of course, as Herman Cain could well attest, it’s always been the case for high-profile people such as presidential candidates to have things from their past come back to haunt them, even without any digital evidence. But that’s because these folks are at the center of tons of media attention. Now, even if you’re not a media figure, the past can come back at you fast and furious if there’s a video, recording, or email that can easily be passed around online.

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They may have laws allowing corporal punishment of minors. It is Texas after all..the wild, wild (south)west. She didn’t say she did it to have him prosecuted, but to keep him from being re elected and doing more harm as a family court judge. She did the right thing imo.

The judge will not be charged, due to statute of limitations: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/texas_judge_wont_be_charged_re_viral_beating_video_says_daughter_posted_it_/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=ABA+Journal+Top+Stories

First, I believe it’s very important to establish what happened. A man thrashed and caused unnecessary emotional distress to his own HANDICAPPED daughter. I notice you cleverly omitted that factoid.

Second, we should determine the reason why she video taped this instance of abuse. It is likely not the only instance of abuse and she obviously wanted a record of it. If a child courageously records their own abuse I believe they should be commended. If only more abuse cases had such hard evidence to back them up.

From my point of view this girl lived in an abusive household. Unlike Ms. Hill, I have a modicum of empathy for abused kids. I work with them regularly as a social worker. It is rare that children ever bring up their abuse while they still live with the abusive parent.

In most cases abused children simply try to move on with their life. Worse yet some believe they deserved the abuse and grow up to be abusers themselves. This is thankfully not the case with Hillary. Hillary, it seems, just wanted to move on with her life, but for some reason decided her father needed to be exposed for the abusive man he is.

From her own statements we can assume that there was more than just political motivations for why she decided to release the video now. It seems Hillary’s father has continued to harass her to this day. He deserved to have this video released and his career (hopefully) ruined for what he did to his daughter.

Regardless of how long ago it happened. Regardless of an apology. You aren’t cleared of of a felonious act by apologizing and he should know better. There is a VERY good reason why the statute of limitations is much longer for cases of child abuse. Sometimes it takes a very long time for children to come forward. This is also not an instance where we can speculate as to the severity of the abuse based on how long it takes for the victim to come forward.

Ms. Hill seems to be making the case that: It couldn’t have been that bad if she took this long to come forward. As stupid as that argument is by itself, it’s even more ridiculous when you consider we have video evidence of the severity of the abuse. In my expert opinion this is severe.

Ms. Hill’s problem seems to be with the timing.

Does it happen to coincide with an election? Yes. Is it probably more than a coincidence? Yes. But considering this judge has presided over cases of child abuse and cleared men of charges of child abuse, I am happy she released it at such an opportune time.

This person doesn’t deserve to hand out judgement to others.

In the future Ms. Hill, I would avoid writing articles that make you seem sympathetic to child abusers. I would also attempt to take an objective approach to your writing.

Conflating a victim exposing her abuser with someone seeking to libel a colleague is beyond absurd.

I’m certainly not making the argument that the abuse “wasn’t that bad.” One video provides a limited snapshot of a situation, but as I note, the video is pretty damning. It’s seven minutes of a man beating his daughter with a belt. Nowhere here have I indicated that the abuse is or was acceptable. Unlike you, I’m not a social worker; I write about technology. So my focus in this piece was on the power of technology to bring attention to an episode of abuse from seven years ago. I haven’t spoken with either of the Adams, and so I don’t know what their relationship is now — obviously it doesn’t seem to be a healthy one. Adams indicates that her father continues to harass her, though doesn’t specify how. I assume that, given the level of attention this story is getting, those details will come out.